Blame
by airyn.clark
Summary: Blame is an origin story for the Joker written by one of my grade 10 ELA students at the international school I teach at in Bangladesh. I think it is outstanding and shows some incredible talent! Feed back would be much appreciated.


_Sagorika_

 **Blame**

With night came the putrid stench of uniformed men drinking on the job and the gleam of cheap stilettos. The air tasted like nicotine and the stale exhaust of gridlock; the yellow streetlamps hazy. Down the road, under the weak glow of neon lights advertising Gotham's best foot massages, a man stuck needles into his arm.

His constricted pupils languorously followed the slender figure of a woman bathed in cheetah spots. Voice shrill, her cracked red lipstick moved with ease against her phone, accusing her ex-boyfriend of changing the locks again. Another woman, face sagging with age, watched from a plastic chair outside a convenience store, this one puffing away at her ninth cigarette of the hour.

As was his routine three times a week, the clown watched.

Garbed in worn out black instead of his customary purple, he sat on a rooftop, drinking in the scenery. Getting the bloodstains out of the suit had proven to be harder than expected this time, and he was not very fond of wandering a city notorious for the thirst of its hounds. That, and it was cold out on the sixth floor anyway.

Legs swung over the damp stone, they were two black-sneakered reeds. Once the head office for a low-selling magazine, the building had went up in flames seven months ago. Renovation papers found themselves buried under papers of bankruptcy, and the blackened, wooden-windowed complex soon found itself a haven for teenagers hyped up on adrenaline and amphetamines, and the occasional home for the homeless. Tonight, however, it was his territory, and neither squatter nor junkie dared near it.

Back when he had had a name, seldom did he go out in the open like this. Dank alleyways and dimly lit bars with colored smoke in the air were ideal; places where no one turned a eye onto hooded figures with his hands in his pockets. Complete and utter anonymity; just another face in the crowd; another fuzzy and vaguely familiar police sketch.

" _You'll only ever need three things to go far in this life, son."_

The bearded and bruised face of his father floated in front of him, blackened lips moving like worms. Eyes red and dilated, teeth yellow and cracked; the man had aged a year every three days. Some days speaking to him had been akin to speaking to a corpse; his cheeks were sallow, and his hair thinner than it was the week before. Never did he solely pay attention to one thing. Such special moments of brutal honesty and philosophical soliloquy came only when he reeked of cheap whiskey and spoke in slurred vowels.

" _Three things."_

Friday night. Mid-November because he remembered that the Johanssons next door already had their Christmas lights up (three reindeer with green and white glitter for pelts; two of their noses had gone out). His mother was working double shift at the Laundromat beside the street she would bleed out on four months later. Sixteen years young, mouth dry and awash in nicotine (the girl's name had been Miranda, and this time it was a college boy). The man he had to call his father, even though the last time he had done anything inherently fatherly had been at his birth, came thumping into their single bedroom apartment, a steady crimson stain coating the lower half of his face and top of his shirt.

"Jack."

He looked up, and wish he hadn't. Green eyes so pale one could've mistaken them for milk bore into him like daggers. The limp and slight, almost subconscious, sway and aura of drifting in and out of reality told him all that he needed to.

" _Jack."_ This time his father was more adamant, but his breath hitched on the last letter and ended in a fountain of dark red coughs.

"That blood yours?" asked Jack, exasperated. Nothing new; he was surprised no fists had come swinging yet.

" _Mmph,"_ came the response, as he lumbered across the tiny dining space. Jack rose from the pinstriped couch. "Where's... where's the sl—"

"—your loving wife?"

"Don't use... that _tone_ — ungrateful—" the rest of sentence ended up in a murky puddle on the floor, and a considerable portion of the floral wallpaper. The boy watched as the man fell to his bloodied knees, a crumpled heap of beaten limbs and vomit. _Oh, dad._

Twelve fifty-four a.m. By the time he was done tending to him, it was almost three, and his fingers had gone stiff with the harshness of suture thread, his father's blood dry under his nails. Sighing, Jack got up from the bed he had lain him on, wiping the sweat off his pale brow.

He hated it. He hated the stench of his father's intoxication on his clothes, he hated knowing how to stitch up wounds in seven different ways, he hated having to duck to avoid the fool's rabid punches, he hated, he hated, he _hated—_

" _Uhh—"_

 _Speak of the devil and he shall appear._

"Whattimeisit?" he muttered. His head came up and then back down, eyes scrunched in pain. "Oh, _hell—"_

"Whoever you got into a fight with," Jack said, voice flat, "was a _beast._ Some of those bruises don't even look real."

"So long as I'm still prettier than your mother." Slow as his speech may have been, nothing could've dented that bitter tone of his.

"Hilarious. You've got fourteen stitches."

"You... you patched me up?"

His eyes met the ceiling, a testament to his sardonic youth. "Who else? You think we've got the money for a hospital?"

"Watch yourself."

"I'd tell you to look in a mirror, but I suppose you're in enough pain as it is."

He had forgotten to mention how much laughing would probably hurt his bruised ribs. The sight of the old man's wince brought a tiny smile to his face. _Oops._

The two sat in silence, the only sounds the ticking of the clock and heaving breathing; it was akin to metal scraping metal, a grating noise. Methodic. That was what they were. Every other night he would stumble in, half there and half not, and regardless of the bile that rose in his throat at the sight of the buffoon, he still did what he had to. What he was _obligated_ to do. There was no other motivation or emotion behind it. No needle could stitch up his resentment; nothing could disinfect his disgust.

In fact, all he felt – during his rare instances of feeling – was pity.

They would exchange their half-slurred vitriolic banter, his father would fall back into a hazy stupor, and Jack's morning call would be a pair of brass knuckles. Routine, routine, routine. Occasionally, his mother would factor in; a slap here or a scathing comment as to he should've spent his time on better things there. That was as far out of the lines the color would go. This, night, though—

"You're a smart boy, Jack."

His head snapped up. Had he heard him right?

As though those snake-like fingers had somehow managed to crawl into the abscesses of his mind, the man said, "You heard me."

Never had he been more aware of the skin of his arms; never had the beat of his heart felt more foreign. He could've been on a metal slab naked and have felt less vulnerable than he did in that moment.

"Your mother thinks so, too, y'know," he continued, words slick with a saccharine bluntness "But not in the way I do. She thinks you're book-smart— math quizzes and science projects and medals for sport she pretends to understand. She thinks you're going to be mayor some day, _ha._ Silly little girl. She thinks you're made for a desk job in some fancy suit bossing around men who only care about what's going in their pockets. Stupid. _Stupid._ Not me, though, son. Not me."

His watery eyes glued themselves to the ceiling, and he spoke with such nonchalance, it was almost as though he had forgotten Jack was there. He did that sometimes. Not that it mattered.

"I remember when I first saw you; all pink and squealing – like a little pig. Did you know you were the born the same day my mother died? How funny of the universe. Take a life, give a life. You'd have liked her, too. Small woman, but a sense of humor like no other. Taught me all I knew. They expected me to be happy, you know; I was probably drunk when I first held you. How does that make you feel?"

\- _like I want to choke the breath from your lungs and wear your veins as a necklace, Dad—_

"I loathed you. The sight of you made me want to wretch. The only reason I ever loved you was because I had to. _She_ made me. She told me you had my eyes—"

- _emerald green, Jack, that's what they call it. I used to love his ones. Now they remind me of all the mistakes I've made. Hey, look at me when I talk to you—_

"And I tried, son. I tried. It's not my fault you're the way you are. It's not my fault dead cats show up in dumpsters every time me and your mother fight. It's not my fault I find needles hastily shoved away in pillowcases. It's not my fault my boy's going to end the world some day, is it?"

Where he found his voice amongst the thousands in his head escaped him. "You're wrong." Why was his voice shaking? " _Wrong._ "

A laugh filled the room. In around fourteen years, it would return to him. It would return to him every night he spent gazing at a padded ceiling; it would return to him in the form of peeled paint underneath his nails, and tufts of torn hair on a tiled surface. It would be a laugh that he would trace on the skin of his wrists with rusted knives, and on the neck of a girl with pink and blue hair. A laugh that would spark the rest.

In that moment, though, it burned him.

"You'll only ever need three things to go far in this life, son," the man said, closing his eyes. "Three things—"

It was so easy to find them. This part of town was infamous for muggings anyway. All he had to do was listen closely, and he'd pick up on high-pitched calls for help soon enough. It was almost too easy. This one was a redhead, with freckles like glitter. The man was two inches taller than her and stick-thin. A cakewalk.

" _The first is subtlety."_

Shadows were key. The black clothing made it simpler, too; he slunk behind brick walls and garbage cans and idle cars. The man had the freckled woman pinned against a wired fence behind an old Chinese place, one hand tugging at her purse and the other brandishing a silver blade.

The clown neared them at a steady pace. Muggers were a jumpy specimen, and the smallest of sounds set them off. That was what made the armed ones dangerous; one wrong twitch, and the redhead would become red ribbons.

He knew how to play the game by heart. Neither of them noticed him before his arms were around the man's neck.

" _There's nothing better than a good ol' surprise, don't you think? But you don't want it to end too quick. Loses the fun. Second thing's theatricality, Jack. Everybody loves a show."_

Her screams became gasps. If he had wanted to, he could've snapped the man's neck clean. Instead, he simply held on tighter and pulled. As predicted (and they were always so predictable), the bag fell and the knife came swinging. The clown only laughed.

They danced a fervid dance of limbs and fists and flashes of steel. Admittedly, the mugger moved fast. Shame he moved faster.

" _Never forget to keep 'em entertained."_

Vaguely, he registered the man threatening him. That made things only funnier. He liked funny things.

He let the fool catch him in his knees and went buckling. His lips tasted of his own blood, and nothing could've been sweeter.

"You shouldn't have done that," the man muttered through his chipped teeth. The blade glowed florescent under the streetlights, and came at him in a silvery arc.

People, the clown found, had an obsession with optimism. In any given situation where there was the potential for outcomes that weren't necessarily positive, they would always be grasping at whatever sugarcoated straws they could find. In their heads, the world wasn't going to end, the bomb wasn't going to go off, and they were going to stay in love forever. They thought they were invincible. Everything they did and said was done with that mantra in their heads. _Idiots._

That was why the clown caught the man's arm with ease, and twisted. Hard. He clearly hadn't expected that; people's expectations for him were oft skewed, the clown found. How amusing.

"Oops," he breathed into the man's ear, his grip on his frail form ironclad. "Guess I shouldn't have done that."

The notion of invincibility went spilling onto wet asphalt; later that night, the rain would lead it down and out into the sewers.

"Jesus—

 _Ah, of course._ He looked up from the heap that was a pathetic excuse of a criminal (what had ever happened to honor?), and met the woman's gaze.

In a past life, he might have considered her pretty. Back when he had had a name, he would've told her how the blue of her irises reminded him of the first and last trip his mother had taken him on. They had gone to some beach, where they stood together with wet sand between their toes, and breathed in the scent of the sea. He had asked her if they had used chemicals to make the water as azure as it was, and she, in one of her rarer moments of tenderness, had shook her head and laughed. He used to love making her laugh— before she lost half her teeth, that was. Then it made him want to get rid of the rest so he wouldn't have to look at her.

That didn't matter anymore, though. Both of the people in that memory were dead.

" _Make 'em believe that you care. The world will be yours if they think you give a damn about it."_

"Are you okay, love?" he asked her. "You hurt?"

The sequins on her top shimmered as she panted. Mascara painted a trail between the freckles on her cheeks; a bruise was steadily making its way around her jaw. Something about the sight sent a rush of energy through him. She looked like a broken doll.

"D – d – did you... _kill_...him?" she spluttered. When he took a step towards her, she violently jerked away. " _Don't."_

"Oh, I'm not gonna hurt you," he told her. The knife had been safely tucked away. "See? No weapons. It's fine. You can trust me."

Her tiny shoulders shook as she regarded him. "Who... who are you?"

"Does it really matter?"

"Why d – did you..."

"Help you?" _Games are fun. Especially the late night ones._ "Why wouldn't I have?"

There was a pause, and then another shaky breath. "Jesus," she repeated, barely audible. "Oh, god."

"You got a name, freckles?"

". . . M – M - Margot. Did you... did you kill him?"

"Margot. Cute."

"You... d – d – didn't _answer_ ," every word of hers seemed to take the effort of ten. "Did you _ki_ —"

 _Again._ "No, I didn't, Margot," he snapped irritably. Ordinary people could be so dense sometimes. "You think if I did I'd still be dawdling around the body in front of a clear witness? Honestly."

 _I've made sure that that'll happen_ after _I'm gone, sweetheart. You can only bleed for so long._ "Besides you didn't answer my question, are _you_ hurt?"

"I... I don't know," Margot said. "He hit me pretty hard. Tried to t – take my purse. Had a knife and—oh, god, he's _moving—_ "

"It's nothing, don't worry about it. He's not going anywhere any time soon."

"Oh, god. Oh, _god."_

Tears reminded him of his mother, and he hated thinking about his mother. Now he was getting impatient. Red-haired-and-freckled Margot sobbed too loud; people would be noticing soon.

Ever so gently, he placed the flats of his hands against her back. She didn't resist. "You're okay now. See? You're okay." Her breathing began to slow down. "You're okay."

His father had almost fallen asleep that night, he recalled. To keep him awake, Jack had shook him with fervor, something near desperation.. He had begged. "Finish, won't you? What's the third? _What's the third?"_

Her lips were dry and crumbly against his right hand, but her pale throat felt soft in his left. Those lovely blue eyes shifted frenzily; left to right, left to right. Windshield wiper-esque, the clown noted. She barely knew what was happening before it did.

"You're a stupid little girl, Margot." he muttered, voice lilting. "Did you know that?"

Whimpering. Her legs had given away, too. "People like you make this too easy for me. You think I _want_ to do this? No, no. I do it because somebody _has_ to. Believe it or not, I'm actually a great guy. At least, that was what my father told me."

" _The world doesn't exist to make you happy, Jack. Only you can do that for yourself."_

Dawn would be upon them soon; and with that, the city's filth. More rats, both in suits and on the streets. Perhaps a bat or two, if the day was kind.

" _It'll be hard, of course, but what can you do? You make the best of it. You always, always make the best of it."_

"Would you believe me if I told you that I didn't want to hurt you, Margot?" he inquired, voice low. Pools akin to those of the sea stared at him, afloat in water. "You're so pretty. I'm not doing this for anybody apart from myself. Nobody owns me. I do this because it, well," he bore his silver teeth at her in an abrupt smile, "it makes me happy. I wish it didn't make me happy, believe me. But it does! IT DOES! It's not my fault, is it? I mean, we don't get to choose what we love. It's not my fault things aren't right up there. Right?"

His vision began to blur; years of medication went disappearing in a swirl of water; years of pleas to go to a doctor went up in flames; years of self-diagnosis—and of self-treatment—played on a constant, toxic loop. "It's not my fault. It's not my fault. IT'S NOT MY FAULT!"

She was warm. As fragile as glass, but warm.

"Hey, Margot."

" _You know what you'll always need, Jack? Regardless of what life's throwing at you?"_

Decades back, he would've loved to try and count the freckles on her cheeks. He would've held her, and taken her somewhere safe. In another reality, they would've fallen in love and had children with green eyes and fiery locks and Gotham would never had to have dealt with the chaos he would go on to cause. In another reality, he would've stayed skinny little Jack Ledger, who would've occasionally been caught smoking in the alley behind the high school he'd have never dropped out of. In another reality, he would've stayed whole.

Alas.

" _A sense of humor."_

"You wanna hear something funny?" he asked the girl, shifting his left hand the slightest. The glint gave it away; awareness overcame her immediately. Her eyes widened at the sight, horror-struck. Like freshly caught fish, she began to thrash wildly. The ones that put up a fight were always more fun.

"Oh, come on, Margot," the clown lightly admonished her, pressing the cool of the blade against the corner of her soft mouth. "My jokes aren't _that_ bad."


End file.
